National School Walkout: Who is driving the movement?

U-T

Students at Patrick Henry High School in San Carlos held a 17 minute walkout to show solidarity with the students at Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people were killed a month ago.

Students at Patrick Henry High School in San Carlos held a 17 minute walkout to show solidarity with the students at Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people were killed a month ago. (U-T)

U-T Letter writers

Walkout flouted the rules of democracy

Re “Don’t use students as pawns in gun debate” (March 13): While watching the nationwide student walkout, I had the feeling I was watching the disintegration of democracy in America. It seems we are teaching our children that creating chaos is the preferable way to express yourself and that even a minority can effect change if it makes enough noise.

What I have seen over the last couple of years is a disturbing trend where our citizens (and now children) want to act like they are in a Third World country where leaders are chased out of the country and constitutions are rewritten every 10 to 15 years.

What happened to teaching social studies? I learned that if I didn’t like the way our leaders were doing things that I could vote or help get someone else elected to do the job. Educators should stop using children to carry their message and stirring up trouble. Teach our children how to properly effect change in a democracy.

Tom Fairfax

Rancho Peñasquitos

Kids are the ones leading the movement

I would contend that most reasonable people know that the rash of mass shootings is most often the result of too many guns getting into the wrong hands. You can’t shoot someone without a gun and other countries with the same cultures of violence (minus the NRA) and same levels of mental health problems don’t have the mass shootings that we have here.

To suggest that the schools are “pushing” the students to protest is condescending. Those kids in Parkland went through a transformational experience and have been able to express their fears, outrage and frustration in a way that has changed the conversation, turned the heat up and threatens the stranglehold on the extreme policies insisted on by the NRA and its sycophantic government representatives who are recipients of their large donations.

The idea that these students aren’t “open-minded, critical thinkers” is ludicrous and disingenuous. Remember, you can’t learn the “three ‘Rs’ plus tech” if you are shot dead.

Harvey Rempel

Scripps Ranch

Another cause these students might support

I was initially perplexed that teachers sent hordes of students from their classes to march somewhere in support of a movement to control firearms. I changed my thinking, however, when friends informed me that such measures as raising the age limit to own a gun from 18 to 21 would save many lives, notwithstanding the fact that many 18-year-old kids, especially in the center of the country, use them for hunting.

With all that in mind, I would like to suggest another measure that would, like restricting firearms, save many lives.

Let’s raise the age for driver’s licenses from 18 to 21. I’m sure the throngs that left their schools to bray about the well-being of their schoolmates with all those guns around would see the wisdom of such a measure and return again to the streets, leaving their instructors to the luxury of the faculty lounge.

As a 72-year-old Vietnam War protester from the 1960s, I would like to congratulate and give encouragement to the students who are participating in anti-gun demonstrations. Please don’t think this is the end of anything, however. It’s important to remember that those in power have much to gain from maintaining the status quo.

Students are up against a very politically powerful gun manufacturers’ lobby and the politicians they have bought and paid for. Eventually, in the 1960s, we were able to end an illegal war, force two presidents from office and imprison nearly an entire corrupt administration. They have the support of many people, so they should hang in there.

They will have to persevere. It will take time, but their goals are definitely attainable.